50 x 50 Commission
Jason Hartke is President of the Alliance to Save Energy. Terry Sobolewski is SVP and Chief Customer Officer of National Grid US.
We were sitting in the U.S. House of Representatives Rayburn Building, on Capitol Hill, in conference room 2200, as the 50 x 50 Commission took the podium. It was September 26 and the Alliance to Save Energy was celebrating the completion of step one in its broad bipartisan boost to slash energy use in transportation largely through electrification.
Step one's report is an ambitious call for action, or really, an ambitious call for a number of actions by government at all levels, the energy and transportation industries, and citizen groups. You can check out the report - 50x50: Reinventing U.S. Mobility - at the Alliance to Save Energy web site. Why was this event staged on Capitol Hill? Commission members fanned out afterwards to see the Senators and Representatives that can help make the Commission's vision a reality.
Here we had the Alliance's president, Jason Hartke, and one of the Commission's leaders, Terry Sobolewski from National Grid, reflect on what has been accomplished in electrifying transportation and what lies ahead.
PUF's Steve Mitnick: How was this 50x50 Commission put together?
Jason Hartke: We started to see a tremendous opportunity in the transportation sector to save energy and to think more strategically about the future of mobility. We're looking at two different stories in the transportation sector - one of persistent challenges and one of rapid change.